Wellbeing is fundamental to a child’s health and their overall happiness. Having a strong sense of wellbeing can help a child to become resilient and resourceful, teaching them to cope with challenging situations they may face in the future and give them the tools to achieve their goals in life. There are many factors which can affect a child’s health and wellbeing from nutrition to social and emotional factors among others and it is these factors which can have a lasting impact on children.
Those caring for a child are expected to support their health, safety and wellbeing and their overall development – socially, physically, intellectually, and emotionally. In addition to meeting a child’s basic needs such as food, clothes and warmth, children need to be shown affection, they need to be encouraged and stimulated. Their confidence and self-esteem must be supported, and they should be encouraged to practice and achieve self-help skills to give them their independence and become self-reliant.
As a childminder it is important to understand a child’s individual needs and offer appropriate resources to support their development. The Early Childhood Curriculum Framework, Aistear which was developed to support children from birth to 6 years provides lots of ideas on ways in which you can plan age-appropriate activities for the child to enhance their development. Aistear’s wellbeing theme “is about children being confident, happy and healthy”. To access Aistear’s sample learning opportunities please click here.
